Book Information: Desert Noir

At the age of four, private detective Lena Jones had been found lying unconscious by the side of an Arizona highway, a bullet robbing her of any memories.

Now the scarred survivor of a dozen foster homes, Lena has vowed to find the truth about her origins — no matter how terrible that truth might be.

Lena’s quest is interrupted when her friend, art dealer Clarice Kobe, is beaten to death in her Western Heart Art Gallery on Scottsdale's Main Street. Lena and her partner Jimmy Sisiwan, a Pima Indian with his own internal and external scarring, at first suspect Clarice's abusive husband, but their investigations soon reveal that domestic violence was far from the only problem in the dead woman's troubled life.

Heiress Clarice, for all her money and beauty, had a dark side; her enemies far outnumbered her friends. Among those who wished her harm are George Haozous, the fiery Apache artist whose graphic work she once banned from her gallery. Aa bitter is Dulya Albundo, the daughter of an elderly Hispanic woman whose death was directly attributable to the art dealer’s greed. Clarice’s parents - wealthy land developers whose housing tracts have ravaged the beautiful Sonoran Desert — are oddly untroubled by their daughter’s murder.

Lena’s search for Clarice’s killer brings violence back into her own life, yet it also brings her closer to the solution of her own mystery — her real identity.

Set against the backdrop of the posh Scottsdale, Arizona art scene and the nearby Indian reservations, Desert Noir marks the debut of a detective as wounded as her clients, a woman battling her own demons while trying to rescue others from theirs.